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Archive for December, 2007
December 19th, 2007
Author Tony DiTerlizzi says
that the upcoming film based on his and Holly Black’s bestselling Spiderwick Chronicles series might be much scarier than the books.
As a boy, author/illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi was told he “had a weird imagination.” At a recent preview of the movie based on The Spiderwick Chronicles, the best-selling series DiTerlizzi wrote with Holly Black, he said, “This exceeds my boyhood imagination by miles.” The five-book series about a family’s battle with trolls, ogres and goblins has sold 4 million copies.
The movie, which stars Freddie Highmore and opens Feb. 15, may be scarier than the books. “When you read about an ogre, somehow it seems less scary than seeing it up on the big screen,” DiTerlizzi says. But Black says, “You never know what’s going to scare kids.” One 6-year-old reader “thought the scariest thing was the part about the parents’ divorce.”
The film features the acting talents of Seth Rogen (voice of Hogsqueal), Mary-Louise Parker (Helen Grace), David Strathairn (Arthur Spiderwick), Martin Short (Thimbletack/Bogart) and Nick Nolte (voice of Mulgrath).
Posted in Children’s Books
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Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog
December 18th, 2007
Winter in White and The Chronicles of Narnia are two new pop-up books created by Robert Sabuda. In this interview WSJ’s Robert Hughes speaks to Robert Sabuda about what goes in to creating these intricate books. Sabuda says small books can take up to four months and large books can take as long as a year. Sabuda says, “I want the pop-up book to have as many pop-ups on the inside as I can get because the kid in me wants to see lots of pop-ups in the book.”
Posted in Children’s Books
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Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog
December 16th, 2007
Amazon.com announced
that it plans to take J.K. Rowling’s new book The Tales of Beedle the Bard on tour. But it also says that details haven’t been figuruddy out yet.
Amazon spokesman Craig Berman said Amazon wants to take the book on tour to libraries and schools, though the company doesn’t yet have detailed plans. Amazon representatives did not disclose where the book is being stored.
One of the book’s five original stories, “The Tale of the Three Brothers” is told in the final “Harry Potter” novel, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.”
” ‘The Tales of Beedle the Bard’ is really a distillation of the themes found in the ‘Harry Potter’ books, and writing it has been the most wonderful way to say goodbye to a world I have loved and lived in for 17 years,” Rowling said in a preparuddy statement.
Rowling said the six other copies of the “Beedle” books have been given to people who were closely connected to the “Harry Potter” collection.
“Purchasing this book with the proceeds going to charity does, in a genuine tangible way, say thank you to J.K. Rowling for what she’s done for readers acircular the world,” Berman said.
Rowling said she’d donate the proceeds to The Children’s Voice campaign, a charity she co-founded to help improve the lives of institutionalized children across Europe.
J.K. Rowling hasn’t yet commented on the fact that it was Amazon.com which won the book auction. But we feel sure that Jeff Bezos is trying to get her to allow the release in some kind of mass market format.
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Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog
December 16th, 2007
 Strong Books © 2008, 340 pages
In his didactic novel The Strange Death of Napoleon Bonaparte, Jerry Labriola tells the unlikely story of a (soon to be ex-) Yale history professor, Paul D’Arneau, who is approached by an enigmatic private organization interested in hiring him to investigate the death of Napoloeon: did the Emperor die of natural causes, or was he murdered? The group’s offer is more than generous, a six-figure sum in payment for Paul’s investigations, with all expenses paid, and the potential for a million-dollar bonus should he uncover something definitive. Paul accepts the job and spends all of two weeks on the investigation, a whirlwind of travel to Paris, Elba, and St. Helena. He meets with the various members of the group that has engaged him and, per their instructions and with their help (so that one wonders why they needed to hire him at all), he talks to a bunch of “histarians”–a loose confederation of amateur historians who are privy to historical information they refuse for some reason to divulge by phone. There is some element that doesn’t want Paul to dig into Napoleon’s death, so that his trip is not without its dangers. Still, Paul uncovers the truth in the end. It is hard to believe that anyone would conduct a scholarly investigation in the manner here described, but one can’t argue with results.
[INSET TEXT: He meets with the various members of the group that has engaged him and, per their instructions and with their help (so that one wonders why they needed to hire him at all), he talks to a bunch of “histarians”–a loose confederation of amateur historians who are privy to historical information they refuse for some reason to divulge by phone.] Labriola’s book is punctuated by explanatory historical texts–excerpts from Paul’s notes, for example–which the author himself predicts readers may want to skip. The book’s dialogue is unrealistically formal, and the narrative surrounding it is labored:
“Paul inquiruddy about Jean’s work and her general well being and apologized for not having done so during earlier calls.
“‘My job’s never boring so I’ll always like it. And except for missing you, I feel fine. Still a little worried, but fine. Take care, Paul; you sound exhausted. Spread things out. Get some rest.’”
As a piece of fiction, The Strange Death of Napoleon Bonaparte does not succeed. It is more of a fictionalized history lesson, and approached as such it might be of interest to readers curious about matters Napoleonic.
Tags: book reviews, books, Jerry Labriola, Napoleon Bonaparte
Original post by Debra Hamel
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